Disaster Risk Reduction: Key Terms

• The following terms are defined for the purposes of the Act

Adaptation

• Adaptation is the adjustment in natural or human systems responding to actual or expected stimuli or their effects
• Adaptation moderates harm or exploits beneficial opportunities

Capacity

• Capacity is a combination of strengths and resources available within a community, society, or organization
• Capacity reduces the level of risk or effects of a disaster
• Capacity includes infrastructure, physical means, institutions, societal coping abilities, human knowledge, skills, collective attributes, leadership, and management
• Capacity can be described as capability

Civil Society Organizations (CSOs)

• CSOs are non-state actors whose aims are neither to generate profits nor to seek governing power
• CSOs unite people to advance shared goals and interests
• CSOs have a presence in public life, expressing the interests and values of their members or others
• CSOs are based on ethical, cultural, scientific, religious, or philanthropic considerations
• CSOs include:
  • Nongovernment organizations (NGOs)
  • Professional associations
  • Foundations
  • Independent research institutes
  • Community-based organizations (CBOs)
  • Faith-based organizations
  • People's organizations
  • Social movements
  • Labor unions

Climate Change

• Climate change is a change in climate that can be identified by changes in the mean and/or variability of its properties
• Climate change persists for an extended period (decades or longer), whether due to natural variability or human activity

Community-Based Disaster Risk Reduction and Management (CBDRRM)

• CBDRRM is disaster risk reduction and management in which at-risk communities are actively engaged in the identification, analysis, treatment, monitoring, and evaluation of disaster risks
• CBDRRM reduces vulnerabilities, enhances capacities, and places people at the heart of decision-making and implementation of disaster risk reduction and management activities

Complex Emergency

• Complex emergency constitutes a form of human-induced emergency
• Complex emergency's cause and assistance to the afflicted are complicated by intense political factors

Contingency Planning

• Contingency planning constitutes a management process that analyzes specific potential events/emerging situations that might threaten society/environment
• Contingency planning establishes advance arrangements for timely, effective, and appropriate responses

Disaster

• Disaster constitutes a serious disruption of the functioning of a community/society
• Disaster involves widespread human, material, economic, or environmental losses/impacts
• Disaster exceeds the affected community's/society's ability to cope using its own resources
• Disasters result from: exposure to a hazard, present vulnerability conditions, and insufficient capacity/measures to reduce potential negative consequences
• Disaster impacts include: loss of life, injury, disease, negative effects on well-being, damage to property, destruction of assets, loss of services, social/economic disruption, and environmental degradation

Disaster Mitigation

• Disaster mitigation constitutes the limitation of adverse impacts of hazards and related disasters
• Mitigation measures encompass engineering techniques, hazard-resistant construction, improved environmental policies, and public awareness

Disaster Preparedness

• Disaster preparedness signifies knowledge and capacities developed by governments, professional response and recovery organizations, communities, and individuals
• Disaster preparedness effectively anticipates, responds to, and recovers from hazard events/conditions
• Preparedness action occurs within disaster risk reduction and management
• Preparedness aims to build capacities to manage emergencies efficiently and achieve transitions from response to sustained recovery
• Preparedness is based on risk analysis, early warning systems, contingency planning, equipment/supplies stockpiling, coordination arrangements, evacuation, public information, training, and field exercises
• Preparedness is supported by formal institutional, legal, and budgetary capacities

Disaster Prevention

• Disaster prevention constitutes the avoidance of adverse impacts of hazards and related disasters
• Disaster prevention expresses the intention to avoid potential adverse impacts through advance action
• Examples include: construction of dams eliminating flood risks, land-use regulations prohibiting settlement in high-risk zones, and seismic engineering designs ensuring critical building survival in earthquakes

Disaster Response

• Disaster response constitutes the provision of emergency services and public assistance during/immediately after a disaster
• Disaster response saves lives, reduces health impacts, ensures public safety, and meets the basic subsistence needs of the affected
• Disaster response focuses on immediate and short-term needs
• Disaster response is sometimes called "disaster relief”

Disaster Risk

• Disaster risk constitutes potential disaster losses in lives, health status, livelihood, assets, and services
• Disaster risk could occur to a particular community/society over a specified future time period

Disaster Risk Reduction

• Disaster risk reduction constitutes the concept and practice of reducing disaster risks through analyzing and managing the causal factors of disasters via:
  • Reduced exposures to hazards
  • Lessened people and property vulnerability
  • Sound land management

Disaster Risk Reduction and Management

• Disaster risk reduction and management constitutes the systematic process of using administrative directives, organizations, and operational skills and capacities
• This facilitates the implementation of strategoes, policies, and improved coping capacities, lessening the adverse impacts and the possibility of a disaster
• Prospective disaster risk reduction and management refers to activities that address/avoid new or increased risks, especially if risk reduction policies are not in place

Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Information System

• This is a specialized database containing information on disasters
• The database includes human, material, economic and environmental impact, risk assessment and mapping and vulnerable groups

Early Warning System

• Early Warning system constitutes the capacities needed to generate and disseminate timely/ meaningful warning information
• Early warning system enables individuals, communities, and organizations threatened by a hazard to prepare and act appropriately, reducing harm
• A people-centered early warning system comprises: knowledge of the risks, monitoring/forecasting of hazards, communication of alerts/warnings, and local capabilities to respond
• End-to-end warning systems span all steps from hazard detection to community response

Emergency

• Emergency constitutes an unforeseen or sudden occurrence, especially danger, demanding immediate action

Emergency Management

• Emergency management constitutes the organization and management of resources and responsibilities
• These resources and responsibilities address all aspects of emergencies, particularly preparedness, response, and initial recovery steps

Exposure

• Exposure indicates the degree to which at risk elements will likely experience hazard events of different magnitudes

Geographic Information System

• Geographic Information System constitutes a database containing geohazard assessments, information on climate change, and climate risk reduction/management

Hazard

• Hazard is a dangerous phenomenon, substance, human activity, or condition that can cause
  • Loss of life
  • Injury or health impacts
  • Property damage
  • Loss of livelihood and services
  • Social and economic disruption
  • Environmental damage

Land-Use Planning

• Land-use planning constitutes the process undertaken by public authorities to identify, evaluate, and decide on different options for land use
• Land-use planning includes consideration of long-term economic, social, and environmental objectives and implications for different communities and interest groups
• Land-use planning includes the formulation and promulgation of plans describing permitted/acceptable uses

Mitigation

• Mitigation constitutes structural and non-structural measures taken to limit the adverse impact of natural hazards, environmental degradation, and technological hazards
• These measures ensure the ability of at-risk communities to address vulnerabilities, minimizing the impact of disasters
• Mitigation examples: hazard-resistant construction, engineering works, implementation of plans/programs/projects/activities, awareness raising, knowledge management, policies on land-use and resource management, and enforcement of comprehensive land-use planning, building and safety standards, and legislation

National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Framework (NDRRMF)

• NDRRMF provides for comprehensive, all-hazards, multi-sectoral, inter-agency and community-based approach to disaster risk reduction and management

National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Plan (NDRRMP)

• NDRRMP constitutes the document to be formulated and implemented by the Office of Civil Defense (OCD)
• NDRRMP sets out goals and specific objectives for reducing disaster risks together with related actions
• NDRRMP provides for the identification of hazards, vulnerabilities, and risks to be managed at the national level
• Includes: disaster risk reduction and management approaches/strategies, agency roles/responsibilities, lines of authority, and vertical/horizontal coordination in pre-disaster and post-disaster phases
• NDRRMP is in conformity with the NDRRMF

Post-Disaster Recovery

• Post-disaster recovery constitutes the restoration and improvement to facilities, livelihood and living conditions of disaster-affected communities
• Post-disaster recovery includes efforts to reduce disaster risk factors, in accordance with the principles of “build back better"

Preparedness

• Preparedness is pre-disaster actions and measures undertaken within disaster risk reduction and management, based on risk analysis
• Preparedness constitutes pre-disaster activities to avert or minimize loss of life and property
• Examples include: community organizing, training, planning, equipping, stockpiling, hazard mapping, insuring of assets, and public information and education initiatives
• Preparedness includes the development/enhancement of preparedness strategy, policy, institutional structure, warning/forecasting capabilities, and plans that safeguard communities by alerting them to hazards and enabling appropriate action

Private Sector

• Private sector is the key actor in the realm of the economy where the central social concern and process are the mutually beneficial production

Public Sector Employees

• Public sector Employees are all persons in the civil service

Rehabilitation

• Rehabilitation measures ensure affected communities/areas restore their normal level of functioning by rebuilding livelihood and damaged infrastructures
• This also increases the communities' organizational capacity

Resilience

• Resilience indicates the ability of a system, community, or society exposed to hazards to resist, absorb, accommodate, and recover from the effects of a hazard
• Resilience should occur in a timely and efficient manner
• Resilience includes the preservation and restoration of its essential basic structures and functions

Response

• Response is any concerted effort by two or more agencies, public or private
• Response provides assistance or intervention during/immediately after a disaster to meet the life preservation and basic subsistence needs of those people affected
• Response restores essential public activities and facilities

Risk

• Risk constitutes the combination of an event's probability and its negative consequences

Risk Assessment

• Risk assessment constitutes a methodology to determine the nature and extent of risk via analyzing potential hazards and evaluating existing vulnerability conditions
• These vulnerability conditions could potentially harm exposed people, property, services, livelihood, and the environment
• Risk assessments include: a review of the technical characteristics of hazards, analysis of exposure and vulnerability, and evaluation of the effectiveness of prevailing/alternative coping capacities

Risk Management

• Risk management constitutes the systematic approach and practice of managing uncertainty to minimize potential harm and loss
• It comprises risk assessment and analysis, and the implementation of strategies and specific actions to control, reduce and transfer risks
• Risk management is practiced to minimize risk in investment decisions and to address operational risks (business disruption, production failure, environmental damage, and fire/natural hazards damage)

Risk Transfer

• Risk transfer constitutes the process of formally or informally shifting the financial consequences of particular risks from one party to another
• A household, community, enterprise, or state authority will obtain resources from the other party after a disaster
• Risk transfer should occur in exchange for ongoing/compensatory social/financial benefits

State of Calamity

• State of calamity involves mass casualty and/or major damages to property
• State of calamity includes disruption of means of livelihoods, roads, and normal way of life in the affected areas because of natural or human-induced hazard

Sustainable Development

• Sustainable development meets the needs of the present without compromising future generations' ability to meet their needs
• Two key concepts:
  • The concept of "needs,” in particular, the essential needs of the world's poor, to which overriding priority should be given
  • The idea of limitations imposed by technology and social organizations on the environment's ability to meet present and future needs
• Key features: harmonious integration of a sound economy, responsible governance, social cohesion and harmony, and ecological integrity

Vulnerability

• Vulnerability constitutes the characteristics and circumstances of a community, system, or asset that make it susceptible to the damaging effects of a hazard
• Vulnerability arises from various physical, social, economic, and environmental factors (poor design, inadequate asset protection, lack of public information/awareness, limited official recognition of risks and preparedness measures, and disregard for wise environmental management)

Vulnerable and Marginalized Groups

• Vulnerable and marginalized groups constitute those that face higher exposure to disaster risk and poverty
• These include women, children, elderly, differently-abled people, and ethnic minorities